War against people smuggling gets a boost

A COUNTER-TERRORISM agency established by Australia and Indonesia in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings will be revamped to work at shutting down people smuggling.

The Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Co-operation (JCLEC) is to be expanded to become a key part of the regional architecture aimed at combating people smuggling and human trafficking.

Established in 2004 with a focus on counter-terrorism, the centre will have a new role in bringing together law enforcement and immigration experts from across the region.

The announcement, made at a conference on transnational crime in Bali on Tuesday, came as authorities confirmed more than 1000 asylum seekers had arrived in Australian waters in the last week of March alone.

Speaking at the conclusion of Bali Process meeting on Tuesday, Australian Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor hailed the expanded use of the JCLEC agency as key to the battle against people smuggling.

"Given there is a significant dimension of criminality when it comes to human trafficking and people smuggling, it's absolutely pivotal that JCLEC plays a part," Mr O'Connor said.

"To have it formally linked today does a great deal in ensuring that we can combat the criminal dimension to human trafficking and people smuggling and indeed tackle those people who seek to make a lot of money out of other people's misery."

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the move to expand JCLEC was "another manifestation of the strong Australia-Indonesia partnership" and would "inject even greater momentum" into the Bali Process.

"As a result we will have less of a lacunae, less of a vacuum within which perpetrators of the crime of people smuggling and human trafficking can operate," Dr Natalegawa said.

The 37 countries that attended the meeting also ratified a commitment to criminalise human trafficking and people smuggling.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said the commitment to the criminalisation of human trafficking was a "big advance".

But as Senator Carr praised the "significant progress" made by the Bali Process, it was revealed that yet another boat had arrived in Australian waters.

The interception of the boat, believed to be carrying 81 people, west of the Cocos Islands on Monday night, took the total of asylum seeker arrivals to more than 1000 over the past 10 days.

In Sydney, opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said successive Labor governments had allowed the Bali Process to drift off course, and called for a renewed focus on deterrence.

"It was this Labor Government that got the Bali Process off track trying to turn it into a mini UN to accommodate those coming into the region," Mr Morrison said.

"It shouldn't be doing that, it should be focusing on deterrence policies to prevent people moving into the region which then prevents them from getting on a boat and coming to Australia."